united sorry

I am flying to Paris; I am listening to the baroque songs of Eric. Yesterday he song them life in the Maria Theresia evening in Vienna, and I danced to his voice in a duet with Eun Kyung, and in a duet with Pieter. It touched me, listening to this music and being on stage, exploring friendship by dancing. The same evening, Andre sang a church song about the suffering of Jeremia, while I was lying at his feet, blindfolded, pretending I could die at that spot. At the same time Anne poured paint onto Roland, her friend and visual artist who received a shower of blue paint, before he would walk on a catwalk, and would make a canvas painting by dripping the paint. It was a highly metaphorical situation, about private life mixing the desires of an artist; death, in a very straight kitchen sink matter of performance art.
In the afternoon we did a demonstration on the street, and it felt powerful to walk with all these art objects and partly in costume on one of the main roads of Vienna, escorted by a lot of policemen.

The whole day went very well for me, the demonstration with a lot of families with kids, but also the evening in the theatre with so many people on stage. So many people, I didn’t know before, who danced, acted, made music with us now without getting paid. The energy is still not out of my blood, now.

I learned something very nice. In such projects, with so many people, you let the creative energy flow to hold the project together; you don’t think so much about your own role, but only think about a structure how everything can become more specific and alive and constantly try to push the content further and further. During the evening you only must enjoy and live it.

Now, two days later, I am sitting on a terrace in Paris, having my second cup of coffee. Yesterday I went to a performance of a Flemish director about the Mefisto theme. I know some actors personally, so I was very curious and excited. Perhaps because I come out a big project myself, and my mind was still there, I couldn’t find a place to get in. Sometimes the acting was great, and I understood totally the political engagement to do this story about art and Nazism at this moment, especially because they come from Antwerp, a town with a huge extreme right movement. But the plot was so painfully simple, that there was nothing which could touch me, and even when the main actor, who I really respect a lot, tried to make it existential at the end, it felt very unconvincing and forced.

Perhaps it is not enough for me anymore, to write a text, invent some appealing visual situations, for instance with video, to give it form, to give some space for some nice acting. But still I miss a spiritual dimension. I ask myself when does the spiritual dimension come into an artwork.